Look, boss lady. You’ve got goals. No, no, no, no. You have got a big, life changing, audacious purpose.
If you don’t learn how to not procrastinate, or avoid, or push it to the back burner, you’re going to get to the end of your life constantly telling all the young’uns what could have been, or just totally burnt out and bitter.
Don’t be that person. Be the person who is in control of her mind and emotions, not the person who lets her mind and emotions be in control of her.
Because you’re better than that, you’re better than all of these distractions that you’re letting hold you back. You’ve got things to do, it’s time to do them.
So let’s talk about how to stop procrastinating with five motivation hacks, or tips, to help you overcome procrastination. You ready, Freddy?
Watch here or read below.
Today we’re specifically going to be talking about procrastination; how to not procrastinate this year, next year, ever again.
Sound good?
Also, if these kinds of personal bottlenecks are the things that are getting in the way of your success, be sure to read/watch till the end because I have a free training for you that you’re not gonna to want to miss.
The ironic part of this video was I was actually going to launch it on January 1st, and then decided to put it off.
It was a mindful decision, it wasn’t exactly procrastination, but do I still struggle with procrastination?
Of course I do.
Every single person will come up against procratination in their business. It’s a natural part of what we’re doing.
The difference between people who are successful and people who are not successful is knowing how to handle it when it does happen.
So if this is something you’re struggling with, the first thing I actually want you to do is just take a deep breath and give yourself some forgiveness, some grace, and stop beating yourself up.
The very fact that you’re here, trying to learn how to overcome it, is more than what most people can say.
STEP NUMBER ONE: RECONNECT TO YOUR WHY
So let’s dive in with Step Number One on how you can notprocrastinate. I like to tell my clients that your why must be bigger than your why not, because in business there will be things that you do not want to do. There will be challenges that you run up against and there will be things that are not fun even if you love your job and your work, you’re going to find things that you don’t like.
Your WHY must be bigger than your WHY NOT. Share on XYou can’t “Law of Attraction” the challenges away.
You have to learn how to connect to something bigger than your challenges.
And when you are so strongly connected to your why that it is a fire inside of you, all of those WHY NOTS just start to look smaller in comparison.
Answer these questions for yourself.
- Why are you doing what you are doing?
- Why do you actually want to do the thing that you’re procrastinating on?
- What is it going to bring into your life?
- What is it going to lead to?
- What is it helping you to create?
Get connected to that purpose and all the things that you don’t enjoy will start to become more tolerable.
STEP NUMBER TWO: BREAK IT DOWN SMALLER
Sometimes we procrastinate because our WHY is so big that it looks overwhelming. It’s like, “I have the why, but how do I actually do the thing?“.
When you have something huge that’s on your plate, some big vision, you’re going to procrastinate if it overwhelms you. So start chunking it down into smaller steps. You may not even see all the steps all at once.
That’s okay. You don’t have to see the entire path as long as you know what’s right in front of you.
You don't have to see the entire path as long as you know what's right in front of you. Share on XChunk these down into such small steps that you can easily manage them and they don’t feel so overwhelming.
And if you’re not sure how to do this, check out my blog post that I did last week on How to Achieve a Goal in 90 Days, as well as Time Blocking, where I talk about breaking these things down.
STEP THREE: ADD IN PEOPLE
The next step of overcoming procrastination is to add in people. We all need support, encouragement, or accountability. And we all need the right kind because let’s face it; not every person is a safe container for your goals and your dreams.
Not every person is a safe container for your goals and dreams. Share on XSo if there are things you’re working on that you’re procrastinating about, make sure you’re connecting with the right people who are going to be able to support you in the way that you need support.
Another way to do this is just to do it together, work with people. I think this is why the WeWork (the communal workplaces) are so popular right now among entrepreneurs, because working for yourself or working from home can be really lonely sometimes.
One way that you can do this is to join our Boss Lady Facebook group, just for female entrepreneurs!
STEP NUMBER FOUR: HACK YOUR PSYCHOLOGY
You can hack your psychology to create more motivation, and there’s three ways that I find are really popular to do this.
The first is to “Gamify” it.
If you can make something more fun, you’re more likely to want to do it. One way that I have done this in the past is to challenge myself. So for instance, if I had 100 pages of content to write, I would try to write each page a little bit faster than the last one to see if I could beat my time as I’m going through these repetitive tasks.
The second way you can do this is to reward yourself.
Now, I know a lot of you are like, “It’s not much of a reward if I can give this to myself all the time. I can have a piece of chocolate anytime I want to. I can go out with friends anytime I want to.” And I get this so, the way that I would say to do this is to bring in those people. Make it something that your friends are going to support you on.
For instance, this is going to bring in that accountability if you say, “When I complete this, let’s go out and do this thing.“
This is a way for you to make this more communal, bring in the accountability to that reward system and make it work for you.
Another fun, silly, little way to reward yourself is through your own Star Chart. And again, I know it sounds silly, but I know a lot of people – grown women – who do this, and it works!
It works because we’ve been trained for it to work, because it feels good to fill that thing up, and because who doesn’t love stickers?! This can just be a really easy, fun way to challenge yourself or to reward yourself for a job well done.
The third way you can do this is a little bit controversial, because some people will call it negative. And I call that “BS”, because, let’s face it, sometimes we need a swift kick in the ass.
To do that, you may need to incorporate some denial, punishment, and something that’s going to hurt a little bit if you don’t get done what you need to get done.
I’m not asking you to actually self-harm, so don’t go crazy in the comments.
What I’m asking you to do is to use a mechanism to train your brain to stop doing something and start doing something else.
And a simple way that you can do this, that also brings in that community aspect, that accountability with friends, is to write out a check. Write a check for an amount that will hurt, but not too much. It’s not going to put you in the poorhouse, but it’s going to hurt.
And tell your friend, “If I do not get x, y, or z done, I want you to cash this check.“
This is a great way to get your butt moving, because, let’s face it, sometimes the hardest part of getting started is just that initial getting started. Once we get the movement going, we start to build momentum and it becomes easy.
So if you can create something like this, the carrot or the stick to move yourself forward, to get past that initial hurdle, that is going to help you to actually train your brain to start doing these things easier and easier in the future.
So which camp do you fall in?
Let me know in the comments below with either Gamify, Carrot, or Stick, to let me know what you think is going to work best for you right now.
To do that, you may need to incorporate some denial, punishment, and something that’s going to hurt a little bit if you don’t get done what you need to get done.
I’m not asking you to actually self-harm, so don’t go crazy in the comments.
What I’m asking you to do is to use a mechanism to train your brain to stop doing something and start doing something else.
And a simple way that you can do this, that also brings in that community aspect, that accountability with friends, is to write out a check. Write a check for an amount that will hurt, but not too much. It’s not going to put you in the poorhouse, but it’s going to hurt.
And tell your friend, “If I do not get x, y, or z done, I want you to cash this check.“
This is a great way to get your butt moving, because, let’s face it, sometimes the hardest part of getting started is just that initial getting started. Once we get the movement going, we start to build momentum and it becomes easy.
So if you can create something like this, the carrot or the stick to move yourself forward, to get past that initial hurdle, that is going to help you to actually train your brain to start doing these things easier and easier in the future.
So which camp do you fall in?
Let me know in the comments below with either Gamify, Carrot, or Stick, to let me know what you think is going to work best for you right now.
STEP FIVE: UNDERSTAND IT
Step number five is to understand it, understand why it is you’re actually procrastinating.
Now, I do want to say that this can be a clever means of procrastination: “Oh, I need to dig into it. I need to figure out all of my deep seeded history and my childhood experiences that are leading to this procrastination now.“
And if that is the case for you, I want you to knock it off.
But sometimes it is helpful, even necessary, to understand the block that’s in our way in order for us to move around it. Not always, but sometimes.
IF YOU TRULY KNOW AND YOU’RE NOT LYING TO YOURSELF, THAT YOU NEED TO DO THIS, THEN I HAVE A FREE TOOL THAT’S GOING TO HELP YOU UNCOVER THOSE BLOCKS.
I know that it can feel overwhelming to try to figure out what it is that’s actually slowing us down or causing this procrastination, but there are really only five areas that we need to address in order to understand why we’re procrastinating and to help us move forward while getting things done.
I’m actually working on a course right now that teaches this process in depth, but in the meantime, I have put together a crash course for you to get started.
It covers those five areas you need to address and it starts you off with some simple exercises to start moving through this process and overcoming your own procrastination, overwhelm, Imposter Syndrome, or any of the other personal bottlenecks that might be holding you back.
It is 100% free, and you can download it below or click here.
WHAT ABOUT YOU, BOSS LADY?
What are your best tips on how to not procrastinate? Leave your answers in the comments below for others to benefit from.
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